4 ms·

The bay area is the most obvious example, but the problems of exclusionary zoning in America are extremely widespread. In practice, this means the booming, high

The bay area is the most obvious example, but the problems of exclusionary zoning in America are extremely widespread. In practice, this means the booming, high-income metros (which are largely liberal, like SF, NYC, Boston, and Seattle) are suffering the worst of high housing prices. More conservative metros will at least build outward to deal with housing supply problems. Yeah, that's not really good for the environment, but it does help with prices. But not liberal cities: they don't want to build out OR up. Instead, you get a plethora of excuses as to how they really shouldn't be expected to host any more human beings: why can't another city in the metro build more? Why can't those people move to another state? Why can't those companies hire more in another state? What about my god-given right to free, abundant car parking? Shouldn't we build more infrastructure before more housing (also let's not build that infrastructure please)? Why can't we freeze my neighborhood in amber? Etc.

ptyyy 7y ago
> More conservative metros will at least build outward to deal with housing supply problems. Yeah, that's not really good for the environment, but it does help with prices. But not liberal cities: they don't want to build out OR up. SF, NYC, Seattle, and Boston don't have more land to open up for development by virtue of their geography. Of course places like Dallas, Oklahoma city, etc. are able to build outward -- they aren't surrounded on multiple sides by large bodies of water. To build outward in SF, NYC, Seattle, and Boston they would have to recreate Waterworld.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  They could still build upwards, and that has been suggested many times by residents. They (or rather, certain powerful factions within them) just don't want to.
  - cannonedhamster 7y ago
    Can the land actually handle building up? Wouldn't building down be the better way to go? I mean most of those cities are already threatened by rising sea levels. Boston and New York are pretty dense areas who's home do you want to tear down to build new more expensive high rises that the working poor can't afford.
    - nostrademons 7y ago
      Skyscrapers go straight down into bedrock - the Prudential and Hancock in Boston are built on landfill in the Back Bay, but it doesn't matter, because their foundations go way past the mud. There are a few architectural/area combinations you want to avoid (you probably don't want 4-story rowhouses in the Marina in SF, for example), but most of the land area in these cities is solid. Western SF, for example, is actually at a high elevation immune to most reasonable sea level rise projections: https://ss2.climatecentral.org/#12/37.7341/-122.4540?show=satellite&projections=0-K14_RCP85-SLR&level=10&unit=meters&pois=hide https://ss2.climatecentral.org/#12/37.7341/-122.4540?show=sa... (The East Bay and Palo Alo are screwed, but that's not the subject here.) Also, expensive high rises benefit the working poor by giving rich yuppies a place to live where they don't bid up the same housing that working-class people have been living in for decades. If you put up luxury condo highrises in SOMA where tech workers could walk to their offices, for example, then maybe they wouldn't be bidding up the price of 1BRs in the Mission to $4k/month. Landlords are generally unwilling to let housing go vacant, because even a 2-month vacancy can destroy much of their profit for the year. So one way or another, if you build enough housing the price will adjust itself to the point where everybody gets housing.
      - cannonedhamster 7y ago
        Back Bay of Boston is really a marvel. I have literally no idea about California so I'll have to take your word for it. My concern is that the only people who seen willing to build are those who stand to make the most money. It would seem that the effective way to do this would be to require as part of codes for building different cost zoning to be taken into account. When I was in Tokyo they had elevators sectioned off by floor access, which would provide the ability to have luxury, shopping, and lower/mid income mixed into the same building. When I've traveled to Europe I've been interested in how businesses have been lower levels with hosting above, something I've not seen much of in the US.
    - asdff 7y ago
      These cities are only dense in the American sense. Even Manhattan looks unremarkable next to a properly dense city like Sao Paulo. Los Angeles is probably the best city suited for becoming really dense. The basin is sprawling, it can fit over 20 manhattan islands, but most of it is low slung single family homes that could one day be upzoned into towers. Lots of areas near downtown are just industrial/warehouses too and could be converted into housing in the future. It has to happen eventually. As long as there is economic activity, there will be jobs hiring the best talent from around the world, spurs more economic activity, etc. That's just not going to change, demand will continue, so cities really need to get rid of zoning for height so supply could be built near the job centers. The alternative is sprawl, which means people need to be transported, consuming resources, etc. Infrastructure is also all the more difficult to build out over sprawl. In particular for California, adding to the sprawl could also mean building into wildfire prone areas.
  - curtis 7y ago
    We are definitely building upwards in Seattle, as anyone who has been through South Lake Union lately can attest.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  Yup, which is all the more reason they should be gung-ho about building up. Guess how that's gone?

ptyyy 7y ago

> More conservative metros will at least build outward to deal with housing supply problems. Yeah, that's not really good for the environment, but it does help with prices. But not liberal cities: they don't want to build out OR up. SF, NYC, Seattle, and Boston don't have more land to open up for development by virtue of their geography. Of course places like Dallas, Oklahoma city, etc. are able to build outward -- they aren't surrounded on multiple sides by large bodies of water. To build outward in SF, NYC, Seattle, and Boston they would have to recreate Waterworld.

nostrademons 7y ago
They could still build upwards, and that has been suggested many times by residents. They (or rather, certain powerful factions within them) just don't want to.
- cannonedhamster 7y ago
  Can the land actually handle building up? Wouldn't building down be the better way to go? I mean most of those cities are already threatened by rising sea levels. Boston and New York are pretty dense areas who's home do you want to tear down to build new more expensive high rises that the working poor can't afford.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    Skyscrapers go straight down into bedrock - the Prudential and Hancock in Boston are built on landfill in the Back Bay, but it doesn't matter, because their foundations go way past the mud. There are a few architectural/area combinations you want to avoid (you probably don't want 4-story rowhouses in the Marina in SF, for example), but most of the land area in these cities is solid. Western SF, for example, is actually at a high elevation immune to most reasonable sea level rise projections: https://ss2.climatecentral.org/#12/37.7341/-122.4540?show=satellite&projections=0-K14_RCP85-SLR&level=10&unit=meters&pois=hide https://ss2.climatecentral.org/#12/37.7341/-122.4540?show=sa... (The East Bay and Palo Alo are screwed, but that's not the subject here.) Also, expensive high rises benefit the working poor by giving rich yuppies a place to live where they don't bid up the same housing that working-class people have been living in for decades. If you put up luxury condo highrises in SOMA where tech workers could walk to their offices, for example, then maybe they wouldn't be bidding up the price of 1BRs in the Mission to $4k/month. Landlords are generally unwilling to let housing go vacant, because even a 2-month vacancy can destroy much of their profit for the year. So one way or another, if you build enough housing the price will adjust itself to the point where everybody gets housing.
    - cannonedhamster 7y ago
      Back Bay of Boston is really a marvel. I have literally no idea about California so I'll have to take your word for it. My concern is that the only people who seen willing to build are those who stand to make the most money. It would seem that the effective way to do this would be to require as part of codes for building different cost zoning to be taken into account. When I was in Tokyo they had elevators sectioned off by floor access, which would provide the ability to have luxury, shopping, and lower/mid income mixed into the same building. When I've traveled to Europe I've been interested in how businesses have been lower levels with hosting above, something I've not seen much of in the US.
  - asdff 7y ago
    These cities are only dense in the American sense. Even Manhattan looks unremarkable next to a properly dense city like Sao Paulo. Los Angeles is probably the best city suited for becoming really dense. The basin is sprawling, it can fit over 20 manhattan islands, but most of it is low slung single family homes that could one day be upzoned into towers. Lots of areas near downtown are just industrial/warehouses too and could be converted into housing in the future. It has to happen eventually. As long as there is economic activity, there will be jobs hiring the best talent from around the world, spurs more economic activity, etc. That's just not going to change, demand will continue, so cities really need to get rid of zoning for height so supply could be built near the job centers. The alternative is sprawl, which means people need to be transported, consuming resources, etc. Infrastructure is also all the more difficult to build out over sprawl. In particular for California, adding to the sprawl could also mean building into wildfire prone areas.
- curtis 7y ago
  We are definitely building upwards in Seattle, as anyone who has been through South Lake Union lately can attest.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
Yup, which is all the more reason they should be gung-ho about building up. Guess how that's gone?